


I don't really want to be the queen

by likebrightness



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 16:37:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likebrightness/pseuds/likebrightness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki hadn’t beaten her in training for centuries.</p>
<p>She’s beginning to understand the extent of his ruse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I don't really want to be the queen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cordelias_Soliloquy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cordelias_Soliloquy/gifts).



Loki hadn’t beaten her in training for centuries.

She’s beginning to understand the extent of his ruse.

\---

Back when her hair was blonde, she met Loki first. In the library.

She was doing something entirely Not Allowed, as usual—had escaped her tutor and made her way to the section on war. Girls’ studies of history merely included that wars happened, but Sif wanted to know everything about them—the battles, the weapons, the strategy. She generally hated studying at the library. Boys were only there half as often; the rest of the time they were outside, training, and most of the time Sif hated that she wasn’t. Learning of war, though, she could pore over books for hours. She’d taken to lying flat on top of the tallest bookshelves so she couldn’t be found and made to return to studies of home and hearth.

That day, she rounded a corner to her favorite aisle, looking for a particular book, and instead found a boy, surly and glancing around like maybe he wasn’t where he was supposed to be either. When he saw her, though, he immediately stood a little taller.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded, _loudly_ , and Sif shushed him almost before he’d finished the sentence.

“For Borr’s sake, be quiet,” she hissed.

The boy laughed, louder still. Sif wondered if punching him would make him shut up, and that was when Quenby rounded the corner of the shelves.

“Lady Sif, if you pl—” her tutor stopped short at sight of the boy. She knelt. “It is an honor, sir.”

“What?” Sif said, and the boy smirked.

Her bewilderment lasted only a moment before the All-Mother appeared in the aisle behind the boy.

“Loki,” she sounded stern, but restrained. She offered Sif and Quenby a smile. “Oh, have you made friends?”

Sif’s mouth was arid. The boy—Loki, _Loki_ , the son of Odin!—continued to smirk. She had shushed the prince. She hastily fell to her knees beside Quenby and stared at the floor, face burning red.

“Please,” the All-Mother said. “Up, up, and my son will remember his manners and introduce us.”

“I hadn’t yet the pleasure of their names,” Loki said.

“I am Quenby, dear All-Mother. Tutor of Lady Sif.”

Sif nodded, standing now, but eyes still aimed at the ground. She wondered how harsh punishments were for disrespecting the prince.

“Please, call me Frigga,” the All-Mother said. She looked at the aisle they were in. “Lady Sif, are you studying war?”

The words “I wish” were out of her mouth before she could think. If she weren’t killed for disrespect, Quenby and her other would surely kill her for behaving this way in front of the royal family.

Frigga chuckled, though. “Come, then. If you’ll permit me to interrupt your studies. Come learn of the war with Vanaheim with the boys.”

Sif looked up, finally, as the All-Mother continued. “Perhaps you can help keep this one in his seat,” she said, ruffling Loki’s hair. He halfheartedly shrugged her away, smiling instead of smirking.

Words did not come to Sif, but Quenby was better trained.

“Of course, dear All-Mother. Lady Sif would be honored.”

The All-Mother actually put her hand on Quenby’s shoulder. “Please,” she said, “Frigga. Now come along.”

She linked her arm though Quenby’s and led the way. Sif stopped focusing on the excitement and disbelief she could feel vibrating from Quenby and looked at the boy. The prince. Loki.

“For Borr’s sake, hm?” he smirked.

Borr—his _grandfather_. Sif felt like a fool. And his stupid arrogant face wasn’t helping.

\---

He offers her a deal that she hates, that is worthless, that she doesn’t trust him to uphold. But it keeps her out of a cell. Still as good as imprisoned, but out of a cell.

He’s always been better with spells than she, but she has absolutely no understanding of those he uses on her now. They work, she knows—tries to escape, tries to attack, tries to get word to the resistance, comes out bruised and unsuccessful each time—they work, but she doesn’t know how. Doesn’t know where to begin to attempt to beat him.

\---

In the library, when they came upon his brother, Loki deflated. He seemed shorter, somehow, and looked upon Thor with something between admiration and discontent.

Thor was different. Gregarious. Confident in the way of someone who has never known reason to be otherwise. He greeted Sif warmly before returning immediately to complaining about having to stay inside and _read_. Sif would have normally agreed, but with book after book of true war history on the table, she took a seat across from the boys and dove into studying.

As long as she didn’t look at the All-Mother, it was easy to forget that these were Odinsons. It felt stranger to be allowed to study beside boys than to be near royalty.

Every few moments Thor would complain again, and Quenby—empowered by the All-Mother—would demand quiet. Sif enjoyed seeing her tutor unable to control another pupil, enjoyed Loki’s bleak sigh each time his brother spoke.

“I have a proposal, brother,” Loki said the fifth time Thor ignored Quenby. “When you can explain not just our army’s movements, but the reasons behind them, we’ll venture outdoors to reenact them, yes? If Mother agrees, of course.”

The All-Mother agreed before Thor could begin pleading. He nodded vigorously and returned to the book in front of him.

Loki rolled his eyes in Sif’s direction. She stifled a laugh and took advantage of the surely temporary silence.

-

They didn’t reenact battles that day—Thor yet to grasp the planning behind the movements. For the first time in her life, Sif was sad to leave the library. But the All-Mother instructed Quenby to return Sif the following day at the same time to continue studying.

Sif’s mother acted like it was a formal ball. She put Sif in a maroon dress and combed her hair long down her back. Sif squirmed.

“Be still,” her mother demanded. “You must look beautiful for the prince. You and Thor match so well. You will have the most beautiful Asgardian children.”

“Ew,” Sif said, meaning _I’ve only met him once_ and _Who says I want children?_ and _I’m still a child myself_ and _He’s not as interesting as his brother_.

\---

Her initial meetings with Thor involve mostly small talk. As close as you can come to small talk when one of the participants is in a cell. They can’t discuss the rebellion, strategy. Loki promised her private meetings, but she knows better than to believe him now. She suspects at the very least he’s listening in, isn’t willing to take the chance that he could be watching, too. There’s no way to even devise a code.

Eventually, Thor asks after the resistance anyway. Sif tells him only what she learns from Loki’s forces, never speculates on their next move. She tells what she knows of Hogun and Fandral—that they are alive, and fighting. There hasn’t been word of Volstagg in a long while. But Thor, mighty Thor, looks so small, so desperately sad, that she says Loki is planning on waiting the resistance out, figures they can’t possibly have enough food to last Volstagg more than a few days. Thor smiles. Sif used to grow weary of his ability to laugh, big, booming laughs about everything. Now, he just smiles.

-

Thor is genuine, has always been. He had plenty of practice lying, but it was only ever to stay out of trouble, never to obscure his own motives.

Loki was a manipulator from before he knew the word.

It took Thor too long to learn that. Sif understood from the first day in the library.

\---

When Sif returned the next day, the All-Mother interrupted her before she could sit down. “Lady Sif, would you come with me?”

Quenby stayed with the boys and Sif followed Frigga to a private room in a section of the library she’d never been.

“You understand the battle of Golteim, yes?”

Sif nodded. She’d figured it out the previous day, was already three battles past it.

“There’s no way you’ll be able to act it out with the boys wearing this,” the All-Mother said. Then she pulled out scissors. “If you’ll permit me?”

Sif grinned, and Frigga went to work.

-

When Sif returned home, weary muscles, beaming smile, and dress cut to pieces, her mother’s shrieking didn’t even bother her.

Sif silenced her with, “The All-Mother did it.” then closed her bedroom door for privacy. She took her hair out of the mess that was left of the braid Frigga had put it in and fell onto the bed. Still sweaty, still smiling, she was quickly asleep.

She dreamt of glory.

\---

Loki is a surprisingly benevolent ruler.

Sif waits for the other shoe to drop.

\---

Sif never had many friends.

Girls hated her for varying reasons concerning her place among the boys at the training grounds. She was trying too hard to get close to them, or she was gay. The boys were more accommodating. Most of them tolerated her, at least. They thought she was beneath them, or waggled their eyebrows and made jokes about how she _should_ be beneath them, but they didn’t hate her existence. Not until she beat them, every time.

The Warriors Three did not take to her immediately, either.

Fandral began chasing skirts as a child, and hers was no exception. He believed her to be playing hard to get. It took sending him to the healers on five separate occasions, the last of which Loki had to bind her with a spell after she could not be physically restrained, for him to give up. He’s apologized, many times over, but Sif has not forgotten.

Volstagg always boasted, his opinion of himself far greater than his actual abilities. It didn’t use to be amusing. It used to be disguised chauvinism aimed toward Sif, joking about things like how he could beat her if he gave it his all. He never truly meant it, Sif knows; when she explained to him—her sword pointed at his throat—he honestly was horrified at his own behavior. She only forgave him because he changed rather than asking forgiveness.

Hogun stayed quiet. Sif supposes she should be grateful that he didn’t go out of his way to make her feel unwelcome, but mostly she’s still sometimes bitter that he never went out of his way to make her feel welcome.

Perhaps Thor and Loki treated her well because they knew her first, though Sif suspects it has more to do with Frigga’s unconditional acceptance of her. Thor was her friend in his affable, naive sort of way—unaware of how difficult things could be for her. He never knew heartbreak back then, and never quite understood it in others. Loki, though, Loki was always the one who understood, who just seemed to get her, from the beginning.

Thor is different now. What is more upsetting is that Loki isn’t.

-

Sif and Loki seem to remember their adolescence differently. He recalls every perceived slight against him.

Sif remembers the way Loki used to look at Thor.

He loved him just as much as everyone else did. He withdrew in his presence, let Thor take the spotlight. Now he complains about not getting enough attention.

She mentions it to him, a day when he’s worn on her last nerve—it’s surprising, actually, how normal it feels, forced to serve him and yet he treats her as he always has, is obnoxious as ever but can still sometimes make her laugh when she’s not expecting it. When he’s spent the day poking and prodding at her, baiting her the best he can, she finally takes it, reminds him that he wasn’t exactly an opposing force to Thor’s ascension to golden boy. Reminds him that he’s the reason Thor got Mjolnir in the first place.

Loki scoffs. “Don’t be a fool. You truly believe I had any control over my father’s preference for Thor?”

She knows how to win this argument. “The fact that you cannot fathom that you had power says more about the situation than anything I could think.”

Loki’s face flickers with bewilderment. Sif is surprised she has the chance to notice it. He’s been hiding everything for so long, she can see any of his true emotions. As soon as it’s there, though, it’s gone again. He smirks, and she considers hitting him in advance of whatever he’s about to say, just taking whatever punishment he responds with.

“I certainly have the power now,” he says. “Could do anything I want with little old Thor and Daddy’s not around to do anything about it.”

She does hit him then, manages only at the last moment to unclench her fist. Her open palm connects high on his cheek.

She’s flat on her back before she realizes he’s reacted. She can’t breathe for his knee on her chest, enough pressure she suspects he’s adding a spell to his own weight.

“Yes indeed, m’lady,” he says, face gleaming above hers. “I certainly have the power now.”

He has both of her wrists in his grasp, one handed, snake bite twisting her skin.

She goes limp, because it’s easier than trying to fight and giving him the satisfaction of winning.

\---

There was a night, after the defeat of rogues in Alfheim. It’s a memory she didn’t know she had until it became important.

The fourth night of celebration was coming to an end. By that time the stories bordered on ridiculous—Thor taking on three hundred by himself and Volstagg losing his sword halfway through the battle, taking enemies down with his bare hands instead. Sif corrected no account, let the boys have their fun and their glory. Eventually it went the way all celebrations went: she grew weary of being overlooked, of her name being left out of toasts, and she abandoned the revelry for the training grounds. She was too drunk to bother training, was more likely to hurt herself than better herself. She just appreciated the quiet. Not silence, for the rest of the realm was having far too much fun for that, but quiet enough.

She sat cross-legged in the middle of the sparring ring. Quiet. She closed her eyes and breathed.  

“Not enjoying the party?”

Sif jumped.

Loki was leaning against the retaining wall in front of her, bottle of mead dangling from his fingers. She hated when he snuck up on her.

“I could be enjoying some of that mead,” she said.

He smirked but complied, ambling slowly toward her, a little too deliberate in his steps to be sober. She snagged the bottle as soon as he was within reach.

“Is something bothering the lady?”

His voice was insouciant, like he didn’t know the answer. But they had spent decades sharing tight smiles over the heads of their friends, silently understanding each other in a way no one else could. What was bothering her was bothering him just as much.

She ignored him and kept drinking.

Every once in a while, Loki knows when to shut his mouth. It’s rare, but it happens. Sif never understood how he could be so emotionally astute at times but spend the rest of his life needling everyone he knew until he found all their breaking points. She didn’t question it that night, as he sat on the ground beside her.

When he finally did speak, he picked something else to badger her about. “I did not offer that to you with the intent that you’d finish it.”

“You didn’t offer it to me at all,” she reminded him, but she handed back the bottle anyway.

They drank and talked, drank in silence. They told their versions of the battles—exaggerating their accomplishments rather than overlooking them. She made him attempt to teach her a spell, and he did, for though he wouldn’t admit it, she knew he rather liked doing what she told him to.

After a while, they were drunk enough to disparage their friends. It felt good. Sif did love the boys like her brothers, but it was nice to acknowledge their faults. They nitpicked each individual’s obnoxious tendencies and bellowed about their collective omission of any accomplishments other than their own. Loki had always been more bitter than she, took things a little further.

“I could kill them with a flick of my wrist.”

Sif agreed loudly, if not honestly. The drunk camaraderie was not altogether common with Loki; she wasn’t about to sabotage it.

He dropped her off at home late, even later than most had turned in. They leaned against each other to stay upright on the way—if she’d had more of her head, she’d be worried about him getting himself to the palace. As it was, she held herself up on the door for only a moment to say good night before tumbling inside and into her bed.

The memory of the night never stood out. It wasn’t unusual that he’d found her when she tried to be alone, wasn’t unusual that they drank the night away together. Now, though, she remembers, and realizes his boast may not have been a lie.

\---

He doesn’t kill Thor. Perhaps that is worse.

Loki certainly seems to think so. He is indecently proud of himself. God of Thunder locked away in the dungeons, his woman enslaved. That’s what Loki calls her, _Thor’s woman_ , when he’s feeling particularly vicious, regardless of the fact that they’ve never, in all their centuries together, so much as kissed. She was supposed to fall in love with him, that’s what everyone said, what her mother said. She was going to be queen. She loved Frigga, respected her more than anyone, but that was never the life Sif wanted.

Loki knew that. He’s known it for almost as long as he’s known her.

\---

When Loki cut her hair, her mother cried. Sif thought _look who I match now_.

\---

The rebellion grows weak. It’s not that they’re losing battles, not that they’re running low on supplies. They are simply laying their weapons down.

Loki did horrible things to get power, but he’s not doing horrible things with power.

He eases the restrictions on her. She can go do things on her own, can visit her friends and family. She suspects it’s not that he’s grown to trust her so much that with Asgard calm, as close to at peace since before the destruction of the Bifrost, there’s no one she could collude with to defeat Loki.

-

She goes home more because she wants news of any remaining resistance than because she wants to see her family. She begs Heimdall for information. He shares nothing.

She expects her mother to ask after Thor, her _favorite_ , ensure that Sif sees him occasionally. She expects her mother to offer hints on how best to court a man in prison. It’s how she’s behaved for Sif’s entire life, why should now be any different?

Instead, her mother acts as though there never was any rebellion. “Why would we rebel?” she says. “We have a wonderful king. Perhaps you didn’t fall for the wrong prince after all.”

Sif doesn’t visit again.

-

Thor gives a rueful smile when Sif explains that the rebellion is over, that Asgardians accept and even like Loki as their leader.

“I am proud,” he says, gives a single nod. “Of my brother.”

She knows he is, knows better than to try to convince him otherwise. Loki is a man she could be proud of now, if he hadn’t been so despicable before. She wishes she could. She wishes he had let himself be who he is now, who she always knew he could be, from the beginning.

-

He as happy as she’s ever seen him.

She is trying to accept his rule the way the rest of Asgard is, the way Thor is. Though there are no longer battles on which she has to advise him, he keeps her in the palace as consul. He finds reasons to call her in on more decisions than she is required.

When she lets herself forget—there’s so much that she has to forget, and when she lets herself, when she can—she’s happy, too. But she can never forget for long.

-

Thor is exiled to Midgard, on the condition that Mjolnir be destroyed, and he never have any contact with Asgardians again.

Loki isn’t even the one to tell Sif. She has to overhear some sentries discussing it in the halls of the palace.

She goes to Loki, livid. Calls him an idiot, a traitor. She calls him a bastard because she knows it will hurt.

“I will never see him again?” she says. “You will never see him again?”

Loki’s shoulders attempt a shrug, but he doesn’t quite manage the nonchalance.

“He has made his choice.”

“His choice has been Asgard— _always_.”

Loki makes a noncommittal noise. Sif scoffs.

“You have everything you’ve ever wanted—why do you still need to punish Thor?”

“Not everything,” he says quietly. His face is pointed at the ground, but he’s looking up at her.

She is not willing to let him act as though any of this is her fault. “Perhaps your abandonment of your brother has something to do with that.”

She walks out.

-

Thor’s first love was Asgard, and it will always be his first choice.

Loki is still so terrified of losing power, he’s either forgotten that or is ignoring it. Sif doesn’t care which. That he came as close to admitting care for her as he ever has does not overshadow that.

Sif wasn’t Loki’s first love, and she will never be his first choice.

 


End file.
